


claws and wastelands

by constellatory



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Future AU, Gen, Guardians - Freeform, alphas - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 21:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/423205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellatory/pseuds/constellatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alpha Dave and Rose. Guardians whose lost memories begin to return.</p><p>They wander through the time alone, lost and aching, seeking triumph.</p>
            </blockquote>





	claws and wastelands

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost of fic on my tumblr. Most of that stuff will go here.
> 
> This was originally written around the time of of Act 6 Intermission 1, so it's been 110% jossed by now. I'm still very fond of it, though. 
> 
> There is a letter in this fic that begins with the words "dear dave." I did NOT write that letter. Credit for it goes to ~constellates on tumblr, who I swear I did not unintentionally pattern the name of this account after.

Dave first begins to remember when he is ten years old.

He's flipping channels, bored out of his mind and contemplating working on a remix instead, when a voice catches his ear. He knows that douchebag voice. But why? Pretty sure he's heard the name before, even seen the dude in movie posters and shit, but for some reason this feels familiar. The kind of familiar you don't experience until you're old and wrinkly, reminiscing about your glory golden days like all senile assholes tend to do, but Dave's pretty sure he's not any of the above things. So why the fuck does this feel like a blast from his past? _He's fucking ten._

The movie is Con Air. For reasons he cannot begin to fathom, Dave sits and watches the whole goddamn movie. His expression never changes, not that it'd be easy to tell behind those terrible animu shades, but something is deeply, horrifically wrong. But he doesn't know what. Like claws, long claws, reaching up from his gut to rake at his heart.

It is the weirdest indigestion he's ever had in his life, he thinks, and shuts the TV off.

He's 13 when he sees this Crocker guy on TV. Dude's getting on in years, an aging comedian, but still at the top of his game. Some kinda big hilarious deal, or something. Who cares. But Dave ends up watching him anyway, staring impassively as the dude performs and the crowd laughs at his semi-adorable japery, this master of all pranks, thinking it is maybe kind of funny but not really. But sorta maybe. Possibly he can appreciate it in an ironic way, like he does everything.

And he might have done that, if not for the long long claws reaching up from the deep deep dark inside him. They prick and twitch and feather light envelop his heart, and it freaks him the motherfuck out. Dave pushes up his glasses and rubs at dry, burning eyes as he tears off the couch with rather more speed than is necessary and leaves the room. He doesn't understand what's driving him. He just knows he needs to go. In his hurry, he forgets to turn the TV off.

_hey. are you there? can you hear me?_

_i'm waiting. we're waiting for you! jeeeez, so slow._

_hurry up!!!_

Dave is 16 years old when he happens to meet some chick named Rose online. Her pink font is hilariously out of step with her wannabe goth personality and she talks like a dictionary vomited up Encyclopedia Pretentiousness, but she's actually pretty alright. When he meets her, when he starts to talk to her, within five minutes of the first word the sharp black claws, flexing around his heart in time with its beating, shimmer and loosen the tiniest bit. He breathes a little easier for the first time in six years. He actually smiles a little, a rare allowance, which makes it a sincere fucking shame she can't see him.

"It's nice to meet you, Dave," she says. "Or that's what I would say, if I wasn't certain we've met before."

They both recognize it in a way that is intuitive, ground as deep into their bones as their genetic code, but being the stoic grimdark repressed passive aggressive douchebag loser emotionally immature assholes that they are at 16 years old, neither of them really manages to discuss it frankly. Rose tries, but her subtle layers of wordplay constantly obfuscate the true meaning of it all. Dave's blunter attempts to cut to the point are always derailed by Rose's psychoanalytic mind games. They're good friends, best friends, they love each other, but something is missing.

_guys!!!! wow, you're so slow! hehe, it's okay. i forgive you. we forgive you.  
_

_still, you need to hurry up!  
_

_i don't know how much longer…_

_i mean, it's ok! even if we don't meet now… someday, alright? just be patient!!_

By the time Dave is 18, his work is starting to catch the attention of some influential people. It's total bullshit, of course, and he knows it and they know it, and that's _the entire motherfucking point._ And it's really hilarious, this really huge totally serious totally ironic con game on absolutely everyone who watches, and the best part is that it works. There's so many layers of irony Dave'd be choking in it if he didn't breathe the fucking stuff.

Rose is taking the more traditional route. Of course she graduates high school with ridiculously perfect grades and goes straight to Harvard, probably because of some creepy grimdark magic or whatthefuckever, but it's not important. He knows how smart she is, she deserves to be there above pretty much every other fucker anyway. They keep in touch throughout the next four years, Dave growing his dumb satirical ironic kiddie hobby into the foundation of a multimedia empire, Rose honing her skills by taking on every possible psychology and philosophy course in existence and spearheading a cutting edge undergraduate research project. Their futures are bright.

The claws from the deep, though, they never let go. Rose's are white, and Dave's are black, sharp sharp wicked things, serrated and braided and living and _breathing,_ hissing horrible words in Rose's dreams and whispering terrible futures in Dave's soul. And the two of them still, somehow, never manage to actually get to the fucking issue. Rose finally gets some goddamn formal training in this psychoanalytic bullshit and she still can't breach Dave's barriers. Dave starts taking on some real, actual responsibility and it makes him actually front his intentions for once instead of always being a total stonefaced bastard, and he still can't get Rose to meet him halfway.

Something is missing, Something is just horrifically fucking blank.

Rose turns 21 the day before. Dave turns 21 years old the day that famous comedian dies.

That is the day that Dave remembers, and his heart just stops fucking beating.

He's hysterical the instant it hits, actually fucking hysterical, it's the most emotional anybody's ever seen him - if he let anybody see him. He beats the world's fastest retreat to his massive studio flat, spartan and fucking gorgeous at the top of an old red brick building, just the right amount of hipster, ironic, and cool, and does up all six fucking deadbolts on the door. He always thought it was hilarious the previous tenant needed like ten billion locks to feel safe and suddenly right now he feels like he knows why. He presses his back to it, slides down to the floor, incoherent and shaking, and suddenly realizes how fucking fake and awful this place is. This image, this everything he's set up, it's all him, but it's _not him at all._ Because something was missing his whole life. The claws that have been gently caressing his heart all these years suddenly, mercilessly, squeeze bite slice rend a-fucking-sunder, and his heart is in bloody shreds and sinews in his chest but _still beating_ and it's the most painful fucking thing he's ever experienced, ever known. He didn't think this much pain existed in the entire fucking universe until he felt it personally.

He spends one hour, one entire hour, hysterically crying. He screams once. Then he's done. He leaves his shades off as he goes to contact Rose, video chats her for the first time, and she doesn't blink when she sees his eyes, red irises and sclera shot through red from crying. He doesn't comment on her own state, her face streaked dark with mascara and her violet eyes dark dark dark, nail marks angry red crescents in her cheeks.

"John," is all Dave manages, at first, and Rose's response is to shake her head in a very tight, minute gesture and shut her eyes.

"We were too late for him. You know who we need to find. She might still be out there."

Dave sits up straight. They gaze at each other for a quiet moment, an endless moment full of space and perfect grey, and without a word of mutual agreement simultaneously end the chat.

Maybe there is a purpose to his sad fucking little sham of a life. Dave takes his new empire, gets up off the lazy throne of the Irony King and instead gets down in the fucking trenches and takes goddamn command. To do this, he will need money. A lot of money. So he leads his kingdom into cultural war, mercilessly slaughtering every challenger in his path, personally leading the charge on the conksuckiest horse you ever did fucking see, and America is helpless before him. And in that time, in all that time, he is searching. It is desperate and impossible, trying to locate an island no one can seem to see. No matter what satellite network he taps into, no matter how many favors he calls in, no one can seem to find this fucking island near Australia even though he _knows_ it's there. Rose does the research, the theory, poring over every book in geography she can find from six different universities from a range of like the past thousand fucking years, and nowhere ever is mention made of discovery of an island off the coast of Australia that plays host to a volcano and some weird frog ruins. Did this place ever fucking exist? Are they crazy?

Did they imagine all this shit? Did they dream it? Together?

_man, dave! you are going kind of crazy over this. you didn't have to, man! you know it's ok. i totally forgive you. and besides..._

_i believe in you. WE believe in you! we'll always believe in you. you don't need to do this._

_you'll find us anyway. just not now! maybe … a long time from now.  
_

_we'll be waiting.  
_

Dave is 25 years old when a meteor crashes into a building like six blocks away. For reasons he can't even begin to put words to he's already there when it happens, his bloody shredded heart guiding his feet there when he's not paying any attention, and without thinking he runs into the wreckage before anyone else can react, before the police show up.

There's this kid. This stupid kid who is in dire need of a pair of kickass shades, a fact he just somehow knows, and Dave picks him up, holds the kid in his arms. The fit is natural and perfect, and something blossoms in his chest. It is not love, or happiness, or contentment. It is bleak and empty and bizarrely satisfied.

For some reason, no one questions him when he walks out of the wreckage with the kid held to his chest. No one asks any questions when he starts showing up to work with the most ironic fucking baby carrier strapped to his chest like he is the baddest goddamn dude of all time who is also a parent. He thinks it's so fucking funny and also so fucking not, and when he video chats Rose a week later to show his new human acquisition off, he only lifts his eyebrows a fraction when he sees she suddenly has a little girl of her own.

He does't say anything. She only smiles, thin, unhappy but happy, warm but frozen, twisted but genuine, and inclines her head a fraction.

"I haven't decided on a name for her, yet. Want to help me pick one out?"

Dave is in his 30's by the time he has enough cash, enough bank, enough cred, to commandeer a personal fucking yacht out into the Pacific without anyone fucking questioning him, and he's out there for just a week before he finds it. It's right where he knew it would be, right where he'd been staring for years on a screen of a thousand different satellite gathered maps that showed nothing but open ocean. Of course it's right the fuck here. Of course he couldn't get here until he founded his own fucking company and there's a goddamn board of directors and they went public two years ago and it's just so fucking funny, all of it, hilarious and ridiculous and not-his-life-but-still-his-life.

The crew stays on the ship. They've all already signed iron-fucking-clad nondisclosure agreements that were written in beautifully, so so subtly viciously terrifying language that implied in the most roundabout of ways that if they ever breathed a word of this to anyone, ever, they would basically be dead, and that would be all there was to it. Rose wrote it for him after graduating law school, because she decided that understanding law would help her understand psychology, and vice versa. She was right. The contract is a work of art.

It doesn't matter. Dave hoofs it, because he's rail thin and fit as a fucking gymnast because oh by the way, he's an 8th dan in kendo and also learned tae kwon do for the mother fucking hell of it. All his life it felt like he should be ready, like he should know how to fight because that's a thing he would do, something the hushed dark claws whisperingly approved. Why he bothers fucking listening he isn't sure, but he did it anyway, could take on six fuckers without breaking a sweat or moving his shades a centimeter out of place, not that he's ever had to. It helps now, trekking through the actual fucking jungle, keeping his stamina up for the most intense search of his life.

He's not sure what he'll find. She could be dead. Maybe she's not even born yet. Maybe she's still alive, but just barely. He's not sure what option is worse, since they're all pretty fucking horrific in different ways, but he looks and looks and looks and doesn't give a fuck because he has to know. He feels like Rose is there with him, beside him, watching, hands curled too fucking tight and breaking her perfectly manicured nails as she waits and watches with him.

It's gone full dark by the time he returns to the boat. He told the crew not to come after him, not to search, no matter how long he was gone, and they dutifully followed orders. Nobody makes a sound when he boards the ship and tells the captain to take them the fuck home and vanishes into his cabin. No one says a word, then or ever.

She wasn't there. There wasn't even a single sign of life, there wasn't a goddamn body. The ruins are there, there's a tower, looks like a place someone could have lived, but it's so thickly grown over with vines it might have been centuries since somebody was inside.

And on the thickest vine, the one growing over an indentation that might have been a door, a note was neatly pinned with a bright green thumbtack. In a plastic baggie, of course, keeping it safe.

(He doesn't know, doesn't hear the gunshots from the far side of the island, doesn't realize the entrance he's at is the _wrong_ entrance. But maybe it is the right entrance, only just for him, and he and that boy aren't supposed to meet yet. Dave doesn't know anything about that shit, though. Not yet. Time's his thing, not space or fucking omniscience, and even that isn't his anymore.)

 

_dear dave,_

_long time no see!!!!! :D even if you arent really seeing me...but i can see you! i woke up on prospit a long time ago, and since its not destroyed in this session (whew!!) i could see things in the oracle clouds again. they helped me remember everything that happened too!! so you and rose should be feeling preeeetty cool about remembering all on your own without any help. say hi to her and roxy and dirk for me ok? i wont be seeing any of you for a long time, after a LOT of shenanigans happen which youll see! theres a lot of exciting things in store for us. maybe we can have fun like old times!_

_dont be sad ok?? and dont feel guilty either!! (that goes for rose too!!!) even if john and i are gone now, its not over. trust me! well see each other again for sure. im sorry i cant tell you more about it, but i dont want to risk changing the future on accident :( itll be ok though. im sure now that everything will work out. oh and youll finally get to meet my penpal that i was telling you about. oops, that was another spoiler, but its one thats ok for you to know. i think youll like him! youll probably tease him but i think youll get along. im kind of jealous! and have fun!! theres a lot of things you guys can do now that we couldnt last time (like becoming a famous bigshot ceo?? :o) so you should enjoy it while you can._

_(and dont forget, you still owe me one playdate in the snow!!)_

_< 3 <3 <3 <3_

_jade_

 

This time, Dave does not cry. Not a single emotion passes over his flawless fucking face. He heads home and checks on Dirk, the industry friends he got to watch the kid. They're alright, Dirk is negligible goddamn years old, still a little fucking kid, and pretty entertained by the week off of video games and fun shit to do. It's just a small blip in his life he'll barely remember when he's older, so what does it matter? Dave arranges for Dirk to be watched for another day or two while he heads out to New York.

He doesn't tell Rose he's coming, but she still meets him at the airport. She is perfectly coiffed, immaculately dressed, no longer grimdark or goth wannabe but the consummate professional, so sharp she could make you bleed by adjusting the lapel of her business suit. Her smile for him is gentle and understanding, and when he only gives her a "Sup" in greeting, she wordlessly reaches out to pry the note from his shaking, white-knuckled hand.

"Where's Roxy?"

"She's with a babysitter. A very fine young woman who I happen to know is a fan of Jane Austen."

"I thought you hated Austen."

"Oh, I do. But for a fifteen year old, it's not a terrible place to start. I'll educate her in wiser choices as she grows older."

Rose, much like Dave, has opted for the lofty high rise apartment, though she does not live on the top floor. Still, they make their way up the stairs and out through the fire escape, Rose shielding her eyes from the glare of the sinking sun while Dave ignores it and heads over to the edge. He plops himself down, legs swinging into the void, hands clasped in his lap as he leans forward and stares burningly into the horizon, like if he glares back hard enough the sun will rise instead of fall, reset, return, give him back his best friends who are dead, long dead, many, many years dead.

Rose sits beside him, apparently not caring much for the state of her suit, and flattens her palms against the hot roofing, sitting with her back ramrod straight, her posture perfect.

"It's happening again."

"I know."

"What can we do?"

"What the fuck do you think, Rose? What did we do last time?"

"I don't know if I can wait again, Dave. It's going to be much longer this time."

"Rose, we can't change this. We can't stop it. We're not in the game anymore, just--"

His jaw tightens, muscles flexing at the joint where it meets his skull.

"Just stop. They're dead, Rose, they died a long time ago."

"I know."

"I don't even remember what happened. What the fuck did we do wrong, why are we here?"

"I don't know, Dave. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's useless to ask. I would still prefer ripping this whole game apart at its seams. But I can't. Not when I have a little girl to raise."

She pauses to breathe, and the movement of her chest is stilted, her posture stiff, like it hurts her.

"And you have your brother. We have to stand by them. This isn't our world, Dave. It was never going to be our world. All of this is for them."

"But why?"

His voice is calm, placid as still water. Stagnating.

"After fucking everything we did, I just don't get it."

"Jade and John waited for us, Dave. They waited a very long time. I think all we can do now to honor their memory is keep fighting. Keep holding onto the hope that we'll find a way. That's what they'd do."

"That's fucking stupid."

"That's why John was our leader."

"I know." He shuts his eyes behind his shades. He knows Rose can't tell, she's not even looking at him, but he knows she knows, somehow, anyway, without seeing.

"It was Jade's plan. She wouldn't do this if she didn't think--"

"I know, Dave. I know."

They sit there in silence for a long time. It is the first conversation they have ever had that has addressed the truth of the matter between them. The Matter, the great big impossible thing that ripped their hearts into aching bleeding strings and hollowed out their lives as efficiently as dynamite in a mountain. It has been over 15 years since they met. 15 years, and they have their first honest, actual conversation, the sort of conversation they might have had in the lives that had gone before. Before this universe, before it all went even more wrong, or perhaps even more right, than either of them could have dreamed. With Jade's note sitting between them, the only confirmation they've ever received that all of this was is and will be real, it is perhaps not so strange. For the first time they are both able to believe that it's true. It's real. They are not insane. And that possibly makes this even more awful, even more darkly and terribly painful.

But it also makes it better. Because despite themselves, despite their separate lives, they have dreamed the same dreams, and they will share the same future, and it is the kind of hope that has been missing since the day they were born. After all, usually it was the other pair that did all the hoping and wishing and dreaming, and Rose and Dave just sort of got swept up along with it. they contributed to it in their own subtle ways, but it was not really their thing to devise. Dave, so stoic and ironic, Rose, so subtle and inward-turned, both incapable of generating that sort of feeling in the external world, much less in each other.

That night they rent a bunch of DVD's and watch John's old shows on Rose's slick flat screen TV. Roxy is returned home, put to bed early, while the adults stay up. Rose laughs until she cries, and Dave, well, just manages to chuckle, at least, and smile without stifling it. They do not sleep, instead trading stories and theories and ideas of what might have been and what could be. They talk about her daughter and his brother, and the two other mystery kids they haven't met yet but they're both sure they will. She's thinking of buying a place in upstate New York, in this nowhere place called Rainbow Falls. Dave doesn't have much to say to that.

They talk about her new career as a novelist, this new trade she's taken up. But the instant she says it, he knows that there's more to it than that, more to it than words on pages, ink between bindings. No, this is not a trade at all, a craftsman's tool to shape and give wonder. This is a _sword_ , a thing that cuts and will make bleed, and when she looks at him, her gaze slicing right past his cool guy shades, he realizes that this is more than just an intermission, more than a moment of breath-held stasis while they wait. It is a call to arms. And he already commands a rumbling empire.

They are used to playing the long game. They have done it before. When they part at 8 AM sharp the next morning, with expectations that they may not see each other again for many years, they're both pretty much okay with it. This time, there is no timey wimey wibbly wobbly shit that Dave can just wave his hands and reset, wipe out, make all better in a heartbeat that no one feels but him in another timeline, Rose in her dreams. There is no hopping around, no stable time loops, no stacks of hours collapsing into black hole instants as he closes massive temporal distances with just a small effort of his will. Constantly playing the long game, the time game, the subversive outside game. The fight club, the war game, the battles pretending at Homeric greatness.

This time there are no tricks. There are no shortcuts. There is no Tumor, no Green Sun, no powers. They will wait.

They will fight.

Ultimately, they will wage all-out war.

_We believe in you._


End file.
